My mom smiles and shakes her head. “When your mom’s an English teacher . . .” She looks around the room once more, then her eyes land on me. “I was actually really happy to have a project to work on together. It took us practically the whole summer, but it was fun to see you put your own style and personality into it.” She pauses. Smiles, like she’s remembering it. “You picked everything out, from the paint, to the bedding, to those cute little lights.”
I follow her eyes up to the string of lights that look like little glass floats bordering the ceiling, then around the room full of shades of blues and turquoise, with little pops of red here and there. “I like it,” I say, trying to imagine choosing each of these things. “It’s pretty.” And it really is, but there’s a little pang in my chest. I want to see something that’s familiar. Some remnant of my old room, with its bright yellow walls and butterfly decals over the bed. I can remember deciding in seventh or eighth grade that they were childish and I hated them, and begging my mom to let me redo my room. But I can’t remember taking them down, or choosing new paint colors, or picking out a new comforter or bedside lamp. I must have, though. It’s all here, and my mom says I did, and she remembers it.
I can feel her watching me, and I wonder if it makes her sad to have these memories of us together that I don’t. It makes me sad that it feels like it never happened. That when I try to remember it, I come up empty. Numb, almost.
“Thank you,” I say, “for working on it with me.”
She looks surprised. “You’re welcome.” She laughs and kisses me on the forehead. Pulls me in for the fifth hug since we’ve walked through the front door. “I’m so happy you’re home.”
I let my head rest on her shoulder a moment. “Me too,” I say. Though it’s not exactly right. It’s good to be home, but the word happy feels like a stretch. I wanted to leave the hospital, and I wanted to come home, but I didn’t realize what it would actually feel like when I got here. I didn’t realize how strange it would be to see the sameness and the difference of everything, all mixed up together. It’s unsettling.
My mom pulls me back by my shoulders and smiles. “Do you need anything? How’s the pain?”
“I’m okay,” I say.
“All right, then. I’m gonna let you get settled while I go start dinner, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I was planning on tacos, but—is that gonna be too hard to swallow?”
I smile. “I’ll make it work for tacos,” I say. “Or guacamole, at the very least.”
This makes her smile. “That’s my girl,” she says, closing the door softly.
I hear her walk down the hall and then the stairs. And then I’m alone. I take a deep breath, try to ignore the tightness in my ribs, then let it out in a long, slow exhale.
This is my bedroom.
The closet door is half open, so I walk over to the rack of clothes and run my fingers over the shirts and sweaters I don’t recognize. Dresses I haven’t picked out. A boys’ water polo team sweatshirt. At first I think it’s probably Sam’s. I always used to steal his sweatshirts because they were bigger and cozier than mine. But looking at it, it occurs to me that maybe it’s Matt’s. Maybe he’s a water polo player too. Maybe I stole it from him, or maybe he gave it to me. I move on without the answer.
Next to the closet is a low, wide dresser covered with brightly colored boxes and jars, some spilling out bracelets and necklaces and earrings, others that hold candles or various trinkets. I pick up a necklace and dangle it in front of me for a moment, watching the sea glass pendant spin and twist in the sunset light. It’s pretty, and I wonder where I got it—if it was a gift, or if I picked it out myself. If it’s something special that should mean something to me.
I make sure to put it back in the exact place it came from, like I would if I was in someone else’s room, looking through someone else’s things. I don’t want to disturb anything, because each of these objects feels like a tiny breadcrumb, hopefully making a trail that can lead me back to myself. I want to preserve everything the way it is because Dr. Tate said that being around my things could help me remember. There’s no telling which of these could be the one that does that.
I continue the tour of my room, trying to take in every little detail, hoping for something familiar—or for something to come back to me. On the opposite wall I recognize the shape of my desk, which I remember as white. Now it’s painted a deep red, but the fact that it’s still here, and that I know this desk, feels like a victory. Still, I approach it carefully because this new version of it doesn’t quite feel like mine.
I’m curious though. I keep—used to keep—the normal desk things like pens and pencils and funny little trinkets in the top two drawers. But I saved the bottom one for special things I wanted to keep safe, and some that I wanted to keep secret: cards or notes, journals, pictures I’d taken. I had a whole photo box where I kept the shots that didn’t make it onto my bulletin board—which is no longer there.
Instead, the wall above my desk is a huge chalkboard, bordered in a bright turquoise frame, every inch of it covered in different handwriting and doodles. I take a step closer and trail my fingers over it, softly, so I don’t smudge any of the writing, and I realize it’s not a chalkboard; it’s the actual wall, painted that way. I wonder if this was my idea too.
I start to read what’s written there. At first I think it must be quotes, but it’s more like random thoughts, or notes, or maybe inside jokes. The usual suspects, like scattered stars, I don’t know if you got a fella but . . . , popcorn clouds, Laguna Matt!!!, customer #87, Queen Cassiopeia, your FACE!
I read them all, over and over again, hoping that something will spark a memory, but nothing comes. Paige and Jules would know what they mean—these are probably all about them. Us. I think about calling and asking them to come over and explain them all to me, but even as I have the thought I remember that this new version of me somehow isn’t friends with Jules anymore. It hits me in the chest, harder than the pain of breathing, and I wonder what happened to us. How can someone be so important in your life, and then be gone from it?
It’s the same as—or maybe it’s the opposite of—what happened with Matt when he came to the hospital. If what Paige told me is true about me and him—that we’ve been together for two years, that we’re a perfect match, and that we’re crazy in love, how is it possible that there wasn’t a spark of anything when I looked at him?